looking in on a cooking lesson

The other day the younger of the kids were playing in the kitchen and were having cooking lessons.  Yes cooking lessons.  Lydia was large and in charge.  The younger set, all boys were on the receiving end of instructions, lots of instructions.  They had utensils, bowls, and pieces of plastic and paper which were ingredients  As I came upon this activity late I do not know how they acquired such objects though Patt is suspected.

Close observation of the students will note that at least one of the students is not picking up on the do not taste guidance.

but at least Isaac is very serious  about following the instructions to stir in whatever it was, following carefully the demonstration.

John Paul quite surprisingly was grown up about being grown up and participating in a cooking lesson.

 and Luke never did quite tasting the mixture, working over that spatula the entire time.

Goats as neighbors, good neighbors too

I think I mentioned some time back having goats as neighbors.  Well they are attractive as neighbors if you ask us.  Down the steep hill behind our house and up the one across the way are two goats and a number of chickens.  They make a fair amount of noise and are fun to watch, especially for these our most adventurous grandchildren.

The gap between the existing wire fence and a yet to be complete wooden fence provided nary a challenge to our observers.

Julianna was especially interested in making contacted with them and reminded me of previous visitations she has made with other farm animals in her past.

At times the space did get a bit crowded as the kids tried to move in opposite directions to get a perceived improved view of chickens scratching in the leaf litter.  As rapidly as the chickens were moving (while ignoring observers) any advantage was short lived.

This trip has been made more than once already and probably will be made again.

 [and in case you were wondering — in this case a good neighbor is one that is interesting.]

Yesterday was one of a string of busy Days and Evenings

Well we finally got around to getting the upstairs tree up stairs and up.  It is well lighted and on the way to being well decorated.  The lighting was again a joint effort and we are still not quite the experts —   we did redo the top half of the tree after turning off the lights to check out our handy work.

Future years may (or may not) show great improvement and will continue to be adventures especially as the younger set join the lighting.  You will note the absence of Luke and John Paul from lighting photos.  We were not born yesterday.

In fact this view of my hair line indicates it has been a while indeed since I was born.  An additional side note is that we hope to get the boxes out of the front room and the rest of the decorations up sometime this weekend.  (We hope)

We had a stop by one of the big box stores.  The girls are experienced shoppers in big box stores.

 and it appears Lydia has ridden carts before — or at least indicated that she knew how to.

Thursday evening, as is our custom on first Thursdays, Patt and I serve dinner at a homeless shelter in Raleigh.  Julianna and Lydia joined us.  They were willing and diligent laborers, setting up chairs.

 Setting the table, despite the challenge of irregular and quite mismatched silverware.

The shelter is chronically short of forks and spoons, so they had to problem silver and figure out makeshift table ware from serving utensils.

 They helped our good friend and fellow long time volunteer Robin prepare the drinks

and set out some of the condiments pre dinner time.  Mike, Robin's husband, is in the kitchen window handing out a sauce to Lydia and Julianna for delivery to the tables pre meal.  They, like their mom and uncle before them, did extremely well, and stayed very late and ate at those same tables later in the evening with some of the guests.

set up tree one today

Set up the Christmas tree in the basement today.  Wish you could have seen the effort in bringing the tree into the house - major group effort- as was putting on the lights.  (Yes we have lights).  It was a real discussion and joint effort.  All hands on deck, well thankfully John Paul was still napping so technically at this point it was not an all hands on deck - it only seemed that way.  Did I mention discussion.  You have no idea how much discussion this can engender.  I also did not realize how often I have to say I don't know why such and such is that way.

 This next photo is a little blurry and out of focus.  Perhaps that is because things at times were moving very fast despite a Cannon Camera's best efforts it could keep up with all movement as shown below.  We were moving.  In addition to Patt taking photos on occasion she was trying to maintain some semblance of order in the room too ( we will come back to that)

 One of the challenges was untangling the strings of lights.  You will have to take my word for it.  I do not store my lights like this as shown below.  I tie each string of lights up individually nice and neat.  Somehow on the trip out of the box and being brought to me they were noodled up pretty well so we had a fine challenge.  Fortunately the kids sorted it out  and only had one string of duds.

John Paul did awaken from his nap in time to participate in putting a few decorations on the tree.  Helpful could be his middle name.   Lucky for us, he came with his Mom.

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 And Patt's other task, keeping order in the room pre John Paul consisted mainly of keeping track of Luke who was not interested in hanging lights on the tree.  Banging this toy dish on the coffee table was joy of the moment (not for long though) and he did give Patt some opportunities for being a grandparent.  But look at that smile - they are worth it.  Oh and even without an artificial noise maker, he is loud as his voice carries.

sending off Kate at Kelly and Beth's

Kate, who had spent Thanksgiving and a couple of days most well accepted with us, was bon voyaged with a going away party at Kelly and Beth's.  Kate has been a most popular and well loved part of our family these past several years and occasional visitor and much appreciated laborer.  

 For our visitors from the East, a visit to Kelly and Beth's provided an opportunity to meet Bailey — wish I had gotten a photo of John Paul who was much taken with Bailey and his chair.

Isaac preferred the more tame of the several cats in attendance.  John Paul chased them all, as did Luke.\

and I though I had graduated from the kids table, but was graced with Julianna and John Paul and being near the brownies and grapes, was a frequent stopping point for wandering kids.

Ball games were of course playing in the back ground and the moment of Alabama's ill advised field goal attempt and Auburn's "run Forest run" (as Marie said) moment played over and over, we enjoyed watching.

Mark got in a lesson in Chinese and proved to be a somewhat difficult student despite great efforts.

And of course Kate had opportunity to regale us all with many jokes, stories and funny incidents of her time here in the South.   And we do look forward to seeing her again, and wish her well and much success.

Thanksgiving was a thanksgiving day

Thanksgiving Day Celebration at our home was especially fun and full of thanks this year as we had two very full tables and one counter.  Here two of the late dessert eaters are concluding their triple or quadruple option selection of desserts.  (we ate well).  Niece Kate was one of our guests and extremely popular with our younger set.

The youngest, Bentley, son of Melissa and Corey, was admirably patient with the interest expressed by these two and many others. Bentley did real well with all the commotion - and there was some - surprise surprise surprise.

Patt's brothers and a friend, Joe, from church and Melissa.  Joe and his wife have become regulars at our Thanksgiving gathering.

 Art, providing horse rides for Isaac and Luke, both boys enjoyed them as Art did in providing them.

One thing I noticed was that Melissa took full advantage of willing arms in holding Bentley.  Oh how I remember those early days of parenthood and being so glad for a little relief.

And speaking of relief.  Can you tell who is enjoying the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade from New York City the most?  Look closely at the couch. Yes indeed, that is Laura.  Shortly after this photo was taken I took the kids outside and Laura continued to enjoy the parade.

And no I did not see very much football at all, just a little of the Lions - Packers game.  I do need to do a blog about football watching with the kids.  They are avid students, especially … well more to come.

"Hey Lydia, they have McDonalds here"

Things are settling down, jet lag quite wonderfully is being managed far better by the kids than by me when I make similar trips.  (Well, I do not cry quite as loudly as Luke, but I whine more according to Patt.)  Really the kids are sleeping well if at the wrong hours of the day.  of course we are having ample opportunity to expose them to sunlight and heavy outside activity which I think is helping.

And we are actually starting to do real things like run errands.   Yesterday for example, when I learned …"Hey Lydia, they have McDonalds here",  I heard Isaac say.  (No truer observation ever made.)  Isaac, Lydia and I were on the way to Lowe's on an errand in the convertible with the top down and stopped at a stop light (I know surprise surprise surprise being in Raleigh and all) and at said intersection there was a McDonalds which afforded the statement. I supported his observation with the comment that "actually we have a lot of them".

As could be expected, we are enjoying the basement and the kids do like their Mom to read to them.

We did spend an afternoon raking leaves and sweeping the deck.  Regular workhorses these kids were too, staying hard at the task at hand.

The yard only looks big due to perspective of the photo but to a small child I reckon it is.

and there were enough leaves at the end of the task to cover small children and allow for jumping into the pile as Julianna is mid flight.

Another afternoon was a trip to the library.  John Paul is only stationary as he is preparing for his next move.  He was not reading nor considering whether or not to read the book.  He did not consider long.

Lydia signing up for a library card. Patt arranged for the kids to get cards and my goodness but whoa boy are we now special with our own card — even a key fob thingee too.  

 And Julianna signing up for hers.  The librarian there has the patience of several saints.

And Laura can wrestle kids while finding books about tigers — There apparently and obviously are times when only Mom will do with the little ones and the library happened to be one of them. 

Lydia and Isaac were ready for some serious reading with Grandmama and she was ready to read.

--which Patt also does in the basement — 

We have also done some bicycle riding in the cul-de-sac.  Not the fleet of bikes, three of the five bikes belong to Mark who has loaned them to me, we got two more from a church yard sale.  I have forgotten which were which so lucky Mark will one day have even more.

Transitioning right on up to Washington DC and back

Yesterday Patt and I continued the transition with a little side trip up to Washington DC for a visit to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum located next to Dulles Airport.  We figured an up and back day trip would be a nice way to start off Patt's reduced work schedule.

The display of airplanes is awesome.  Catwalks allow you to see them suspended form the ceiling, and the collection is impressive from vintage WW II fighters to a Russian MIG, one of the Wright Brother's planes, the Enola Gay,

 the Discovery Space Shuttle — (which by the way is huge.  just absolutely very large and impressive to stand next to), and much much more all very well presented.
 

Oh and back in Dulles Terminal C — well ...we met this crowd !!  Just in from halfway around the world.  Laura, plus grandchildren plus two friends who traveled with them (who are en-route to Atlanta) .

We proceeded to set up camp in a wide space in the hall where we would not obstruct too much traffic nor create too much other passenger angst.  (Note the artistic touch of the reflection of the donut shop, and photographer self portrait in the window over our campsite).(noticed that myself this morning when looking at the photo and tired to figure out what was in the window.)

We were in the long hall connecting D to C Terminals as careful reading of the overhead banner board above will indicate.

 The travelers reported great traveling experience, and our reunion was a joyful time for all.

The hallway was large enough to provide a good play space for kids just off of a 12 hour flight and they played so nicely.

they are very familiar with a luggage carrousel — it is obvious they have seen one of these before.  The row of them at RDU did not impress.  Julianna is wearing Patt's sweater over her backpack. Each of the kids has their own travel pack.

Got to our house about midnight our time - mid-day theirs — we ate a heavy snack, they explored the house, played with toys, and finally (and thankfully says a grandfather who has not seen the  New Year's Eve Ball drop since who knows when) went to bed about 2 AM.  About 4 AM Patt brought me this one and said he is yours.  

I took him to the living room, we read, then did puzzles till 4, when I, sensing a moment of sleepiness in Luke, tucked him next to me and we both fell asleep.  Luke actually stayed here till 1 PM.  Me — I didn't  and am looking forward to better sleep tonight- and missing the ball drop.  But very very happy to have a house full and more transitioning.